Apple is on the lookout for a new senior vice president of Retail, and will divide Forstall's responsibilities among other Apple execs

Apple revealed today that two key company executives will be leaving in the near future: Scott Forstall and John Browett.

Forstall, the vice president of iOS software, will be leaving Apple next year after working with the company for about 15 years. He recently headed the launch of Apple's new maps application, which turned out to be a nightmare. Apple ditched Google Maps as its main iOS maps app in favor of its own in-house maps service, but when it launched, there were huge issues with the geography and navigation.

Despite the maps mess, Forstall's upcoming departure still comes as a shock. When former Apple CEO Steve Jobs died, Forstall was considered the most "Jobsian" Apple employee to take his place. He was a Jobs protégé, from the enthusiastic personality to the same wardrobe to the same exact model car. However, Tim Cook got the job.

Scott Forstall

Browett, head of Apple retail, will be leaving Apple as well. This seems a little less surprising, considering Browett led a retail hiring formula earlier this year that ended up being a huge mistake. This new formula caused Apple to lay off several new retail hires (some that only recently finished their training) and significantly cut the hours of part-timers back in August. Needless to say, this didn't make employees very happy, and Apple was forced to admit that it messed up.

Browett joined the Apple team in April 2012. He came from UK-based Dixons Retail electronics stores, where many would argue that he didn't do a very good job there either.

Apple said it's on the lookout for a new senior vice president of Apple Retail. As for Forstall, the tech giant has decided to divide his responsibilities among other Apple execs instead of bringing in any newcomers.

John Browett [Image Source: The Telegraph]

Jony Ive, Apple's head of Industrial Design, will take over Human Interface (HI) for the company while Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, will take on Siri, Maps, the iTunes Store, the App Store, iCloud and the iBookstore. Furthermore, Bob Mansfield (who was supposed to be retiring), Apple's senior vice president of Mac and Devices Hardware Engineering, will lead a new group called "Technologies" for all of Apple's wireless teams while Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, will take over iOS and OS X.

Of course, Apple had to insert how well it's doing to offset the mistakes its higher-ups made this year:

"We are in one of the most prolific periods of innovation and new products in Apple's history," said Tim Cook, Apple CEO. "The amazing products that we've introduced in September and October, iPhone 5, iOS 6, iPad mini, iPad, iMac, MacBook Pro, iPod touch, iPod nano and many of our applications, could only have been created at Apple and are the direct result of our relentless focus on tightly integrating world-class hardware, software and services."